Soaring global demand for silver and tin has triggered a dangerous new mining rush in Cerro Rico, where young Bolivians risk their lives in unstable tunnels for wages far above the...
Rosmah fails final bid to remove judge or get retrial, appellate court to hear solar bribery appeal over 10-year jail, RM970m fineMiners push a wagon loaded with extracted minerals inside a tunnel of the Rosario Bajo Cooperativa Minera on Cerro Rico , in the Potosi Department, in southern Bolivia on February 19, 2026.
— AFP picand enjoy FREE RM10 & when you sign up using code VERSAMM10 with min. cash of RM100 today! T&Cs apply.Soaring global demand for silver and tin has triggered a dangerous new mining rush in Cerro Rico, where young Bolivians risk their lives in unstable tunnels for wages far above the minimum rate. Mining deaths in Potosí Department have surged alongside record metal prices, with fatalities rising from 77 in 2022 to 123 last year amid collapsing shafts, toxic gases and poor safety standards. Bolivia’s silver boom, driven largely by demand from China for electric vehicles and solar panels, has boosted exports but drawn criticism over exploitative labour practices described by experts as akin to near slavery. POTOSÍ, , March 3 — In the bowels of a Bolivian mine that made the Spanish empire fabulously wealthy 500 years ago, high prices are driving a new silver rush – with tragic consequences. Lured by soaring prices for silver and tin, youths like Efrain Villaca are risking their lives to try find new seams in Cerro Rico outside the town of Potosi. Cerro Rico, a UN World Heritage Site which sits at 4,800 meters in the Andean high plains, was so flush with silver in the 16th century it produced a Spanish idiom: “valer un Potosi” . With silver now trading an around US$87 per ounce, up from under US$20 four years ago, there’s money to be made again for those who venture underground. They average about US$1,000 a month, more than twice the minimum wage.Cerro Rico, which is riddled with tunnels, is slowly collapsing in on itself.“I went in to look for silver veins...and when I was going in, I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t breathe,” he told AFP. Villaca emerged unscathed but in January and February, at least 32 miners died in Potosi department, home to several silver mines, according to the government ombudsman’s Office. Efrain Limache, 24, saw two of his friends plunge to their deaths in the Porco silver mine, also in Potosi, and says he himself survived a 50-meter fall from an elevator. “In all of Bolivia, and I would venture to say in all of South America, Potosi has the highest number of deaths from mining work,” Jackeline Alarcon, a lawyer for the ombudsman’s office, told AFP. The rise in deaths – from 77 in 2022 to 123 last year – has tracked soaring silver and tin prices, which have smashed records on the back of insatiable demand from the tech and green energy sectors. Silver, of which Bolivia was the world’s fourth-largest producer in 2024, according to the US Geological Survey, is an essential material in solar panels and electric vehicles.Tin, which is used in semiconductors, has tripled in price in four years to over US$54,000 per ton. China, the world’s biggest producer of both electric vehicles and solar panels, is the largest buyer of Bolivian silver.Miners chew coca leaves during a break inside a tunnel of the Rosario Bajo Cooperativa Minera on Cerro Rico, in the Potosi Department, in southern Bolivia on February 19, 2026. — AFP picThe miners work shifts in Cerro Rico, using hammers and chisels to extract large chunks of rock from which they extract the ore.But “with the high prices, they have stopped working themselves and hired people to do their work instead,” mining researcher Hector Cordova told AFP, describing “a state of near slavery.”They chew coca leaves for energy – a tradition in Bolivia, where the leaves help keep hunger and altitude sickness at bay – and some swig a 96 per cent strength alcohol. None of those AFP saw on a visit to the mine wore masks to protect against carbon monoxide poisoning or any other safety equipment, besides helmets.Mining Minister Marco Calderon assured AFP that cooperative miners would receive safety training, at their request but he made no mention of the fate of illegal miners. A miner shows a piece of silver inside a tunnel of the Rosario Bajo Cooperativa Minera on Cerro Rico, in the Potosi Department, in southern Bolivia on February 19, 2026. — AFP picGiovanna Zamorano, an emergency room doctor at Bracamonte Hospital in Potosi, has treated a growing number of injuries among young miners. “There are more and more deaths,” she said, adding that most of the victims were aged between 20 and 25 but that at least one was underage. The metals boom has sparked an influx of young people to Potosi from other departments, Alarcon, of the Ombudsman’s Office said.
Potosi Bolivia Silver Mining Efrain Villaca Mining Safety UN World Heritage
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